


Green Light

by anawfulybigadventure



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/M, Love Triangle, Post-Chapter 699 (Naruto)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-03 16:03:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16329170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anawfulybigadventure/pseuds/anawfulybigadventure
Summary: Everything, - including eating, bathing, living, talking, - everything is easier with Naruto, is better. Except one thing. And that thing becomes each day more and more apparent.After the war, she choose Naruto.





	Green Light

**Author's Note:**

> Extremely self-indulgent thing (but then, what isn't?)
> 
> Basically inspired by a quote by Anais Nin:  
> "I hope you never marry a man you don’t love sexually. That is what I have done. I love everything about him, the way he behaves, his face, his body, the way he works, treats me, his thoughts, his way of smiling, talking, everything except the sexual man in him."
> 
> Title comes from Great Gatsby.  
>    
> I think there's going to be three chapters, but we'll see how it goes.

“How will you live your life with a man with whom you can’t get angry?” - Tsunade asks her in the minutes of her doubt. 

“Is it that important to be angry around him?” - Sakura pretends to be busy with weighing the heart. The monotony of the work calms her, she can pretend this talk leaves her disaffected. 

“How will you fight?”

“We never fight.”

“That can’t be right. Not for the long-term relationships.”

She sighs. Her teacher is probably right. She can never imagine herself raising a voice on Sasuke, much less anything like the punches she gives to Naruto whenever he annoys her.

“Sakura,” - her teacher continues, passing her the liver, - “You don’t even act like yourself around him.”

The bloodied thing is heavy on her hands. She remembers the years when she felt such dread when she first gained the gift to tell the story of the man by looking at his organs. Now she only notes that it is a liver of an alcoholic, but the pictures don’t come, the way they did then - the picture of the life that this man lived. Her pity for all of those people, all of their stories was such a heavy burden. It is a relief to be free from it.

She knows that she doesn't act her usual self around him. The feeling appears only when she is around Sasuke - the sudden awkwardness, nervousness. She grows timid and shy around him.

“Is it bad? I’m nervous because I want him to see the best of my qualities. I think of all my replies, all my movements…”

“You don’t need him to see the best in you. You are talking about picking a man with whom you will live together! You need to freely show all your worst qualities, or dull ones. You need to be yourself, and to be around people with whom you can be yourself.”

“Yes, shihou,” - she knows her teacher is right. This talk went that way so many times before. 

That is exactly why currently she lives with Naruto, and not Sasuke. That is why she chose the Jinchuuruki, in the end. 

And she was planning on living her life joyful with her choice, she was planning on finding love in that choice, or nurturing love, if it couldn’t be found.

But how is she to explain the thing that became apparent now that she made the choice? She could never say that to Tsunade, not to her teacher. She can talk about her troubles, about resolutions, but not about that. 

Tsunade is right. Living with Naruto is easier than being with Sasuke. They both argue a lot, and they talk a lot, about anything in the world, it never matters. Sakura never feels like she can say something unnecessary or stupid with Naruto. 

When she and Naruto would lay together, she knows she could kick him, until she would find a comfortable position, and then sleep soundly. She could never sleep around Sasuke - her entire skin seemed to be hyper-aware of their closeness, keeping her awake.

Everything, - including eating, bathing, living, talking, - everything is easier with Naruto, is better. Except one thing. And that thing becomes each day more and more apparent.

Sex with Naruto is nothing more than a physical thing. She knows the biological reasoning behind the orgasm - the overdrive of the sensitive spots leading to the sensation of extreme pleasure. And that what the sex is now. She needs to stimulate her orgasmic spots, rub and tug on them, until she feels it. 

And Naruto is amazing at that. He would gladly go down on her, he always makes sure she comes, he knows how to make her orgasm, so well. He knows her spots, knows how to press them and when, knows how to pleasure her with his mouth, fingers, or his penis. And he is always welcome to any type of experimentation. The type of sex they have, the poses they’ve tried out… There is no shame, no shyness. Sakura remembers the day that they spent inside their home, and she came so many times, they both still argued about the number. 

Only… With Naruto it is sex. Only sex. Frustrating sex. Rub and movement with one goal ahead, and it is frustrating because she needs to do all that in order to get the pleasure that is always a bit far. And then the orgasm would come, and then it would go. And sex is done. Sex with Naruto feels to Sakura almost from a textbook. Genitals to genitals, penis goes into vagina, stimulate the clitoris, move penis back and forth, again, again, again, stimulate the nipples with the mouth. She would be dribbling with wetness, and Naruto would pant about how wet she is, and all Sakura would think is that Naruto needs to shut the fuck up and focus, and move faster, or her orgasm would not build up. 

How different it was to those few times she’s had… She was making love with Sasuke. 

With Naruto she felt that she’s had two, maybe three or four nerve spots that needed stimulation to get into overdrive. With Sasuke, she felt that she was fully a nerve bundle, already oversensitive, and even something trivial like the wind, or his breath, could become her undoings. And when Sasuke would get on top of her, she would look him in the eyes, would see the stars tangling in his raven hair. His skin in all it’s whiteness catching every light it could find in the darkness, his smooth skin that she would hold on to. 

Even tracing her hands across his arms felt more than all sex she’s having with Naruto, it is wrong to even compare.

And when he was inside her, Sakura remembered the first time it happened, when she felt the pain whenever he moved, she was moving towards him, because pain was welcome, because it was so apparent that sex wasn't about enjoyment only. The movements were almost wave-like. Sasuke was carrying her on his waves, like he was an ocean, surrounding her. 

She wanted that to keep going forever. This mantra it seemed they were saying without words. When the first orgasm came, it was merely a wave that swallowed Sakura for a minute, a continuation of their dialogue. And so it kept going - each movement was bringing her closer, and then further, but she was not in the hurry, she didn’t want anything but, she could watch Sasuke, look him in the eyes. He looked at her so intensely, his dark eyes full of his God-like powers, all on her, all for her. She would bring his head down and kiss him on the lips, only because it was hard to handle that kind of gaze, heavy. And it kept going, and going, slow thing between them, one breath after another one, orgasms kept chasing her, drowning her, lifting her, (and in that delirious state that she would enter, she would tell herself that what she sees in Sasuke’s eyes is love. And if it was love inside him, then it burned so much, it surely would make Gods tremble and then...) until at last they build up and caught her all at once. She cried then.

She used that memory (of all three months worth of sex that she’s had with Sasuke) even now. And not just to cum. In fact, it felt like an act of blasphemy to use it in something as trivial as sex. What she felt then was more than an orgasm.

With Naruto sex is about a genital entering another genital. It is about clitoris and stimulation. Sex feels connected to one spot only - it is happening between her legs.

With Sasuke… Sex was everywhere. Her skin, her eyes, her organs - her heart and her lungs, her mouth, her hair, even her mind, her imagination and her past - they all were engaged in the process. And that process never seemed to have a beginning or an end. Sex was continuation of their conversation, of their long relationships, everything they did in the day was part of that process, and when they would separate, it would not mean the end to that process. It was there, to be continued differently, to be continued with their eyes, their words, their travels, plans for their life, and then at some point to come back to them beneath the stars, joined together.

Sex with Naruto is all about orgasm.

Sex with Sasuke… was about entirety of their life, entirety of their relationships, everything they went through.

She remembered when she brought Sasuke’s head down, to kiss him on the lips, the movement was so subdued, quiet that she lingered on, and suddenly Sasuke’s grip on her became almost painful. The look that he gave her then was full of burning. He looked like he was in pain, and he kept looking at her so intensely. She understood then what he felt, or she knew exactly what he felt because they were so connected then - the love felt treacherous to him. He was in pain because of it. And she held him, and struggled to feel the pain he felt, but couldn’t, she could only pity him and struggle to feel the terror of what has happened to him, and hold him through it.

Of course, she could not scream at Sasuke. 

She cannot tell her teacher that she is unsatisfied by her sex life.

That is why she tries experimenting so much with Naruto, she thinks that, perhaps, some joy will be borne out of them having fun, something good that might never feel as deep as what she’s had with Sasuke, but will be different, will win in some other way.

Nothing compares.

It is no less comparable than the books she read about illnesses and the reality of facing people who have them. One is virtual and shallow. Another has the potential to rip her heart as whole.

But people assured her that the pain in the relationships was a bad sign, that they have to be comfortable, joyful, devoid of discomfort and pain.

She could not be with Sasuke and not try to share his torture.

“Doesn’t Sasuke fit me more?” - she tries to do it from another angle.

“In what way?” - her teacher scoffs. - “You and Naruto are both wildcards, wilful, strong, you both have same sense of humour, you both are extroverted, both are bright and ridiculously good in terms of your moral compasses.”

“Sasuke fits me better in terms of smartness,” - she says. Being with Naruto was stimulating to her self-esteem, because Naruto is her best fan, he is a booster to her willpower, because no one could inspire her better than Naruto with his fiery determination, but she can rarely talk to Naruto about the operations she’s done because medicine work is so academic that Naruto barely understands the terminology.

Sasuke always understands her faster than anyone. And not only that, but he amazes her mind, too. He knows so much from his travels, about the world, his observations of it, are always so concise, yet deep. She wanted to talk and talk to Sasuke. What a big difference it has been to Naruto with whom she just talks.

“Don’t lower yourself, you’re much smarter than both of them,” - her teacher tschks at her.

Sakura laughs.

 

 

 

 

The first day of summer she awakes with the pleasant hum of the warmed under the sun body. Her nakedness allows her to skirt through the smooth coolness of clean sheets and feel it soothe her skin, her post-sleep sluggishness doesn't let her open her eyes. The dream is still there, disappearing already, but still ready to be captured and Sakura wants to savour it. She doesn't remember what it was about, only that it was making her feel warm and sated.

The unexpected but so familiar sensation has evaporated her hopes of recalling the dream and it diffused, never to be recovered. The tongue kept sweeping between her legs. 

She opens her eyes to the whiteness of the world. 

He always ate her with such lavishness, such absentminded power. 

His licks were long and broad, there was no tension in them, no hurry or rush. It all steams so naturally from the atmosphere of this only promising to be hot day. 

She opens up her legs even further, spreading out. The sun, coming through the window is bathing her in warm kisses. 

Naruto kisses the rest of her with his wet mouth. 

She perches on the elbows to watch his blonde hair move. The pleasure is not quite there, with each touch about to grow, but he takes too much time to savour her taste for it to build up. She is feeling too lazy to take his hair into her hand and move him with the rhythm needed. It feels good to be passive, to surrender the control over her body to someone else. She drops her head down.

“Aren’t you late for your mission?” - each moment brings her more awareness. She quite likes the luxury of waking up slowly. As a ninja and a medic, time is the biggest treasure she can waste. 

“Hmmm…” - he knows so well that the vibrations of the voice were always her undoings. Naruto then moves his head and supports it on her leg. She can feel his gaze on her with her skin prickling. - “The team can wait.”

Naruto claims that it is only fair. After all, how many hours have they spent waiting for Kakashi-sensei? 

When he moves upwards to her, she immediately feels guilty because she wants Naruto to stay where he were. 

The guilt is all but conditioned into her now. When she first noted just how much she enjoyed only receiving the pleasure, not giving it… She conditioned the guilt to arise with that feeling, in vain hopes to recede the emotion. But it only made her more immune to the wrongness of that emotion, after all, she did feel guilty, so that was atoning that feeling, wasn’t it?

Naruto, after last spurt of growth, became enormous, his tan skin, wide shoulders, wicked mouth and blue eyes - all she can see, hiding the rest of the world from her.

“Hey, Sakura-chan,” - he says with the most tender expression in his eyes.

“Hey,” - she smiles back. 

He kisses her neck, capturing her skin with his lips, too gently to leave bruise. And only then he enters.

And, cruelly, wave of panic engulfs her like the first time. 

He is just too big, she reassured him then when she didn’t know how to hide her feelings. Naruto had a knack for knowing her emotions. But, later, she got better. Concealing the feeling, not stopping it from occurring. 

Sometimes, the guilt made her feel that the price was paid, that emotion was atoned. Sometimes, she felt like the guilt made that emotion normal. That it made what she was doing to Naruto less unfair. That it made what she was doing to herself something that she was changing, full of promise that this panic will be the last. Sometimes, she could even fool herself.

She closes her eyes. Often, the best way was for her to be on top. Then he wouldn’t be quite so suffocating, everywhere, and she would be free to chase her pleasure. Naruto enjoyed it well enough, she knew.

But how to ruin this languor? Her blood was warm with the sun, why move it? Why ruin the comfort of her laziness, when she allows herself only so little of it?

Only because of some unreasonable, refusing to leave, feeling?

He moves, it is a leisure rhythm, that does nothing for her. Naruto keeps bending down to her, and kissing whichever part of her is there. 

How unfair it is that she wanted so badly to enjoy the sex, that she is leaking wet with desire… And at the same time feels something close to disassociation. She lays down there, refusing to be controlled by her irrational instinct, yet consumed by it.

He keeps looking at her like she is some miracle. And she thinks that this is what annoys her most. Naruto feels it. 

She feels inadequate. 

(She feels that there is a huge current of desire, lust, love, life, running so near her, and yet she herself remains dry, unable to run that freely…)

Her thoughts are making this unbearable.

“Sakura-chaaa-“ - she feels that he wants to ask her something. Is she alright? Is she enjoying it?

(No. No.)

So she bends his head into her neck, squeezes it, and starts almost desperately kissing his cheeks, his hair, his neck. 

His smell is good. That what always surprises her. Attraction is born with smell, so why is she feeling that way? Why do her same instincts that tell her that he smells good refuse to let her feel enjoyment of being overwhelmed by him? His body is amazing, by all rights, she should feel lucky by such a catch. And he is her best friend, her history with him is the one that runs longer that any other.

She kisses him to prove that she loves him, she does love him. She kisses him to prove to her stubborn body that he isn't unnatural to her, that she enjoys him, being with him, him being inside her.

Naruto’s hips start bucking, losing control over the pace.

Why can't she lose control over little kisses? How she envies him.

She holds him tightly. To fool Naruto she had to herself believe that she is doing it out of passion. That she wants to hold him like that, close to her, closer.

He starts moaning, a sound that at last does manage to turn her on, she feels a little twitch inside. The grip he has on her hips turning hard, then painful. 

It is welcome. 

Inside her she feels herself replying to that passion, to the desire for her that he has. It is good to be so wanted, craved, needed.

(One time, late at night, she told herself that this was what she came to - a mere mirror to someone else’s desire, an answer to somebody’s question, a doll that was activated with someone else’s will. That night was one of the cruelest she’s had. When morning came, she was surprised at the melodramatic turn of her emotions, the problem seemed so small to deserve such a violent reaction to it).

And yet again, her mind strays, and whatever tension is building, as an answer to his, evaporates all at once, and she struggles to capture it. She moves her hands to Naruto’s buttocks and starts moving them, even harder, grind into her all for this chase.

He says:

“Ah, I’m cl-close,” - stuttering with the punishing rhythm she sets. And she wants to scream at him - No, not fucking yet, she’s about to capture it, she is just so close to it.

But three more obscene slaps, and he starts sputtering. She hears in his moans how surprised he is, and knows that he tried to last longer, that orgasm got him out of nowhere.

He even starts saying, all through moans, all through coming inside her:

“Oh, oh, Sakura.. Ah, I’m-, I’m…”

And he tries to grind inside her with the short, sporadic thrusts. Full of desperation over making sure she feels it, that it is just as good as it is for him. By all rights, it must be hard for him, his dick sputtering still.

She tenses her inner muscles, captures Naruto with all her limbs and releases breath in short tense outs. 

He tries to elongate her orgasm by staying in, by moving his body on top of hers. 

He is the epitome of the thoughtful lover. She imagines his dick must feel pretty sore, oversensitive now.

But she knows that it is not about care of his body. She stays tense, only drops her head back, releasing the muscles in her neck, with a moan. 

The position is not that uncomfortable physically. Her tension brings a promise of the orgasm, her clitoris pulses upon his hot skin. 

No, the worst about faking an orgasm is the guilt.

Should he know, it would be quite a blow to his ego. And Naruto doesn’t deserve that. So she delivers the performance. She isn’t that good of an actress, if Naruto wasn’t as dumb fucked riding down the wave, she wouldn’t have dared.

She thinks, as she allows herself to slowly relax, that of course, she could admit that she hasn’t felt it. It is a harmless truth. 

Naruto would jump on the opportunity to make her orgasm some other way. He would make it all about her, the way she loves the most. He would eat her, or finger her, or even go for round two. He would be a full day late for his mission, she knows it, all for her. 

The problem is that she doesn't want continuation. She wants to end the course.

Surely, that isn't a problem for the long-term couples. Naruto would surely understand her if she says that she doesn't want to keep going. 

Or he would suspect something. 

And connect it with two other instances this month that this happened. 

She gives herself no more than two instances like that per month.

And he is stupid in million of ways, doesn’t understand billions of things, but he knows her, and understands her.

Sometimes when she looked at him, she wondered if he knows what she feels, and only decided to be fooled by her.

But then, the lie is only related to sex, and he lacks the expertise there. She is his first and only, he is too pure to be spoiled even by somebody like Jiraiya. 

Everything else hasn’t required her faking. She loves him. And sometimes when she eats with him, talks to him before going to sleep, fools with him after long week at the hospital, she does feel quite genuinely that this is the most right of the choices. That she loves their life. That she loves him and would happily live with their love finding each other at long last for the rest of their lives.

And not like sex is that bad.

Not always, anyway.

Sometimes it is truly mind-blowing.

Naruto stirs some memories of mind-blowing sex, when he kisses her breasts tenderly. It always amuses her to no end - the fascination he has with her breasts, especially considering that when she lays flat, they flatten as well, becoming nonexistent. Sakura knows that her breasts were unable to deserve such devotion that Naruto shows them. Perhaps, it is Jiraiya’s influence.

“Goodbye, my dears,” - he even talks to them. 

“Okay, leave,” - she pushes him away.

“But Sakura-chaaan,” - he drops back to bed. At first Sakura humoured herself that it is her body that inspiring. Now she just says that this is the price of dating someone from Uzumaki clan. Truly freakish genes.

Naruto does everything that way - hungry, he places so much more power than seems possible in each action, why would sex be different? Sakura knows if she doesn't kick him out in the next couple of minutes, he’ll just spend the day begging her for more. And God help her, if she actually agrees to have it.

So she gathers him in her arms and pushes him out of the apartment. He knows the drill, so instead of trying to fight her, just starts screaming:

“My clothes, let me dress at least!”

She throws his naked butt out, and then takes her lavish time finding his orange suit, quite enjoying his screams. 

There is no wonder why the whole village knows.

When she opens the door to give him the clothes, and sees him standing there, naked, red with embarrassment, trying to cover his parts, she laughs.

Sakura takes his head in her hands, and kisses him with all her mightiness, laughing through it. The power over him, the power that is so clear, because in one instant of her touch he forgets everything, he forgets where they are and how he looks, and only extends his arms towards her, and hugs her, surrounding her. And answers to her kiss so helplessly. Oh how she enjoys it - to have such power over someone so powerful. 

She kisses him dirtily, hard. His erection pushes into her belly.

And then she steps back and closes the door.

His screams subside as she dresses, and by the time she leaves the bath, he is gone. Truly, how can he be the best ninja of all times, when his presence is always so loud?

She took her time, waking up, but now she has no time to waste. Hospital awaits. 

As she looks one last time in the mirror, she feels the beginning of panic, but manages to escape it. Right now she can pretend she doesn’t remember her dream. Right now she can pretend that each thought she has is true and honest. Each thought doesn’t hide the truth behind it.

The voice that is fully silenced, but each phrase has a shadow behind it. Why focus on shadows, when the object casting them is the bright one?

(Like how thinking about freakish genes of Uzumaki clan made her think of some other clan. It was only a medical desire to know the nature of genes, surely.)

How she freaks internally because there is nothing inside her, because she is empty when Naruto isn’t there to fill her with anything. Right now it is of no matter. She pushes the thought aside. She looks into the mirror, and it is hard to be as usually skeptical of her looks when she lives with the man who worships her. 

But behind that, something of her own assessment wakes, and she notes the pimples between her eyebrows. It makes her breathing easier, and pushes all rest thoughts away. 

She thinks that she glows these days. She's never been vain, not about her appearance, anyway, always known her, at best, someone mediocre. Not now. Something of the life now makes her gain the colour and some softness to the body and face. 

Somedays, when she is bitter, she feels annoyed with that sudden bloom of the beauty because she knows that, however unconscious, it is her doing. She turned into someone caring of the way she looks. Not of the way she watches. She is, after all, a mere object of desire, and she is too afraid to lose that current of desire, directed at her. That is why she is so beautiful these days. Because, for the first time in her life, she cares about being beautiful.

She knows that beauty is nothing but arbitrary, shallow thing to be. The fact that her problem is not solved by that resolution decidedly does not bother her.

Somedays she manages to tell herself that the beauty came, even if from her care, surely because of the true love. Everyone says that people in love glow in it, is it not the best proof of the rightfulness of her choice? 

 

 

 

 

“Where are you, Sakura?” - Tsunade demands of her as the work day finishes. 

She smiles, uncertain of what her teacher might mean.

“You’re not here. You’re elsewhere,” - Tsunade says.

Sakura goes back to the day. She’s done everything right, she is sure of it. The work is so ingrained inside her, part of her nature, she hasn’t made a single mistake, followed all the rules to the t.

Why would her teacher chastise her for her work?

She tries to understand where she made the mistake, but her teacher waves her off, impatiently. 

“You were perfect. Too perfect,” - the words are a puzzle.

How can she be too perfect? Besides, she certainly isn’t.

Tsunade sees her questions, so she suggests,

“How about a bar?”

And Sakura agrees. 

That’s how they find themselves sitting in a chic place. Sakura takes a certain pleasure in modernity of the place. Technology truly makes a wonderful difference. She’s proud she was the one to suggest to Kakashi that the village needs to follow the trends of the civillians, she is the one behind the advancement.

Even their drinks are made using some loud machine that swirls them into different colours. Many have argued that this is not for ninjas, but all ninja are people above all. And technology is certainly making the human experience more enjoyable.

Tsunade doesn’t even waste the time to try her drink before chastining her:

“When was the last time you took a risk in your work? Especially such risk that didn’t pay off?”

Sakura frowns, completely lost by what her teacher might mean.

They are medics. For a medic to take a risk that wouldn’t pay off would mean someone’s life. Was her teacher unsatisfied she hasn’t had dead patients in a while?

“Why did you refuse to operate Chikara?”

She remembers him. The chunin, with his head smashed. The skull has had so many fractures, it was impossible for him to be still alive. If there was anyone who could save the man it was Tsunade-sama.

“I’m not that good at treating patients with brain traumas,” - she tries to explain. It would mean certain death for Chikara, if she tried. His only hope was Tsunade.

Generally speaking, Sakura can say without false modesty, that she is the better medic. Tsunade confirms it, and quite often. But the brain traumas… Sakura is better at acting fast, treating quickly, the way war requires, that is the reason why in the ninja world she is considered to be the best medic. The operation that Chikara needed to have performed on, in the end, lasted about forty hours. Sakura barely lasted long enough to assist. She wouldn’t have been able to take the lead role in it. 

“I proved no better,” - Tsunade whips. And Sakura feels a pang of pain because of these words. Chikara died five hours after the operation was done. That was all Tsunade-sama could win for him.

Chikara… Tsunade told her that his teammates died on that mission, he was the last survivor. That his team gained the information crucial to the village’s survival. She told her that he was good, hard-working ninja. 

As they sip their drinks, trying to regain their composure after swirl of memories, trying to regain control over loosened emotions, the day dies in the same whirl of colours that fills the glasses in front of them.

Sakura remembers the first time her patient died. She was feeling so cold and numb then. And later - in such tremendous pain she could barely gasp. 

Tsunade told her then,

“All people die. She lived, she believed in something, she fought with all her strength for what she believed in. She lived, trying her hardest. This is a beautiful life.”

It seemed so cruel then. It still feels so. 

But Sakura guesses there is nothing one can say in front of death that will seem adequate.

And later, as they get their next drinks, the teas, both overwhelmed by alcohol, Sakura regains control and thinks back to what her teacher said. 

True enough, brain traumas are where she loses to her teacher. But the operation that Chikara needed required such precision. Young hands could do better than experienced ones. 

Maybe. 

Could she save the man?

Or even if she couldn’t… Now Sakura understands what her teacher meant when she asked her where she was.

Why hasn’t she, noting her inability, study most vigorously this hard for her field of medicine? 

Even Tsunade could not do it, she told herself later. As if she ever consented with such result before. She was never afraid to be better than her teacher. Never thought twice about going into the places that her teacher dreaded to go. 

Before.

When has she lost it?

Is this what her teacher asked of her? When did she lose her ambitions? The fiery desire she’s had before that fuelled all her actions. She consented with doing everything she could do perfectly. She walked the roads that she has trodden before, never trying to beat some new ones. When was the last time she took a risk was a legitimate question.

“Sakura… If being the medic in the hospital isn’t for you, I understand. Maybe you need to go to missions. Maybe you need to forget about being a medic, and focus on your jounin rank missions. Maybe you need to sit in Hokage’s office and help Kakashi. Maybe… Maybe you need to forget about the ninja life, be a housekeeper, be a civillian. I understand. But don’t go through this life, half-asleep. You are so bright, try to remain so.”

She thinks about those words. What is with her teacher today? The summer day is dying, the night comes with the breath of warmness. 

Was it Dan who died today? 

Or it was one of other countless people Tsunade has lost through her years in this cruel world.

Why else would life shine so brightly, but in front of cold grip of death.

“Are you alright?” - she asks, unable to bear the idea they are to talk about her, when the real trouble is not her.

“It’s nothing,” - her teacher always tries to be so strong, she respects her so much. Especially because it becomes so apparent just how close she came with her observation.

Tsunade’s hands shake. 

She is an old woman underneath that look, and years weren’t kind.

Sakura looks away, through the window. She gives her teacher the necessary pause, but mostly she looks away in shame. 

Her beloved teacher is in pain, and she can’t find the answering emotion inside her. It is not her Tsunade needs now. Shizune would handle it better. 

Sakura is ashamed to recognise the sole emotion inside her. It is jealousy.

Tsunade could feel so strongly, still. So this sudden death has had nothing with her growing up. How she misses being able to feel so strongly, she would be overcome.

Control over emotions was one gift of growing up. She thought the price was the eventual death of them.

“That fool left his things everywhere…”

Sakura doesn’t understand. But she listens, her face twisted away, through the window to the sinking sun.

“He traveled so much… Few days ago we’ve had a guest from the Suna. He knew Jiraiya, so he brought some of the things he left in the house he always rented…”

Her teacher stops, and through the long pause that fills the space, Sakura understands that Tsunade won't continue. She always insists on the relationships between them to be of a student and a teacher, and that is not something you tell to your lower-rank.

Sakura doubts that was it. Naruto told her Jiraiya loved Tsunade so much, always. 

What was inside those things? Jiraiya was a writer. Had he ever written anything, dedicated to her? Had he ever written anything for her?

If Sakura could write, she would’ve written to her love, about him. That would’ve been the only thing she would write of.

But as the night falls, and they separate, and Sakura thinks and thinks about everything Tsunade might’ve felt, about the reason of her words. About her words. 

She doesn’t understand. 

Tsunade was talking to herself. Her teacher was drunk, just like the day was drunk on itself, it even makes sense that today was absent of thought and reason, Sakura repeats the lie - she doesn’t understand.

 

 

 

 

The routine of her days goes on. There is something about routine that might seem boring, but only to those people who never seen the war. After the war, routine seems to be the main representation of peace and so it is the thing that any child of war craves and dreams of having. She craves the routine even when it surrounds her, wants to hold on to peace, to elongate it. It is so pleasant to go outside, see the same people and know that nothing will shatter this world, nothing will left it in ruin with the next breath.

She goes to Kakashi when the hospital allows it. Hospital in peaceful time is a calm place to be at, so, surprisingly, unlike the Hokage office. 

Tsunade, when she gave the office to Kakashi, warned him of it. Sakura was there, because Kakashi wanted her to be his right hand.

“My rule was easier than your will be,” - she said, late at night as she and Shizune were introducing them to all the documents.

“Why?” - “How so?” - Sakura and Shizune asked at once.

Tsunade had to be Hokage through the forth shinobi war, through the danger of Akatsuki, from her first days had to rebuild the village after Orochimaru’s invasion. Kakashi received the control of village at it’s strongest, in the time of peace. He only had to start rebuilding it.

“It’s something Shikamaru told me actually,” - Tsunade laughed. - “He said that war had two sides, and only one object of the game - you had to crush the other one. Peace is something else entirely. Peace has million of sides, each desiring something unique, and the object is not to crush all of them, but to have everyone win. I only had to connect all the people of the village, with one goal ahead, you will have all disconnected people in the village with their own goals.”

War is about power and strength. Peace, unlike war, is intricate and nuanced, about thousands of things. They two are still learning the truth of it, each day in this office.

Tsunade knew that she needed to beat Akatsuki. She didn’t need to wonder or to think about her course, only about the strategy. But Kakashi and she didn’t even know which course to take on. Should they open the village to civilians, to welcome more families, to break the dam in the number of their force that war left them with? Their army, should anything happen, was weakened. Or should they choose the course that, on the contrary, would encourage ninjas to settle more, and get some civilian jobs, because times of peace didn’t give that many missions so it was quite hard to survive on them. D-rank and C-rank mission were generally made only by genins, and genins often were kids, who’ve had parents to take care of them. But older ninjas needed to take B, A, S-rank missions in order to pay rent and utilities. There were not S-rank missions left, so ANBU all but was ceasing to exist, only some A-ranks that usually were given to the strongest ninja in the village, and that position for the first time in history of Konoha was not occupied by Hokage, but by his two God-like students. 

Kakashi decided to cut down the number of students in the academy, lowering the number of ninjas. And encouraged jounins to get civilian jobs. 

The village flowers with that choice, many jounins and chunins started opening restaurants, flower shops. Many try themselves in the technological sphere that is new to the village, some even try arts, Konoha started with opening first concert house, and then a museum. Sakura has in plans the opening of the movie theatre, but that could wait.

Because, firstly, they have to renovate the library. They need a library filled with fiction books that people haven't had the time to read before, with comic books, with music notes, with vain magazines, with thousand of textbooks that could teach people a thousand new tricks they decided to learn, the knowledge that would be useless in the time of war - knowledge of flowers, knowledge of other languages, knowledge of stars. 

What flowers most is the scientific progress, and the obvious flaw of their quick Academy became apparent in the peace - students do not study long enough there to know everything that peace provides. Kakashi and she were spending longest hours, planning and planning their both most ambitious project to date - the opening of the first university. Many talks were going late into the night with professors whom they welcomed from all across the globe to build the most efficient learning centre. 

It all seems wonderful, but she and Kakashi always talk about the danger of that unprotected world they are creating. When they first planned to walk by that course of diminishing the strength of their army, stopping the waste of tax money on supporting the strong military force, they both told themselves that risk was minimal, calculated. Konoha stood strong. So many great warriors… As years keep going and those great warriors are wasting them on peace, without training and vigorous discipline of military, the danger becomes greater. Soon enough, both of them can see it clearly, great warriors will lose their muscles and their discipline, their hard won stoicism, and soon after that those great warriors will start growing weak with their age. Konoha is flowering, but Konoha is weakening, a prospect terrifying for both Kakashi and Sakura, who know how terrible any weakness is, because it always means death. In the times of war, at least.

At their most uncertain moments, they both are telling themselves that Konoha still stands strong, because it is a home to two people with the powers of Gods. How terrible it is to rely on two people they both try not to think of. Two cards that are supposed to help them, and should anything happen to them… What a terrible strategy it is they know well enough without having to talk of it.

Tsunade was right - peace is confusing, terrifying - so many battles and you never knew which way to fight them is the right one, there are no guidelines. In the war you have to answer to the punch you are receiving, the first movement is made not by you, you only have to answer back. In peace, you have to take all the steps yourself, you have to take the first one yourself, and then answer your own question, and so forth. In the war the goal is clear - to survive, to be the last man standing. In the peace… You have to think of the goal, and it can be anything, and then go and achieve it, and you can choose the wrong one, or waste your time on something not worthy of it. In peace you are the initiative one, and it is a testament of complexity of peace just how much imagination and education you need to learn to think for yourself.

Tsunade had to answer to the dangers, they have to pose the questions first and then look for the answers. Their job is something else entirely.

But it is also easier. In some new way, in an unexpected one. When they aren't spending too much time, petrified of the weakened state, the village looks good. Children are raised by their parents, flowers are growing everywhere, death isn't lurking by the corners. True, people seem weaker, mere shadows of their past greatness, but they are alive.

And they flower with that weakening, too. People are more educated than ever, who knew that such a thing like education would lead to such unusual outcomes that they both are viewing - fights are becoming less, sicknesses are captured at proper times in the hospitals… People seem softer in a way that seems a weakness, until you are seeing that they are also kinder, gentler. 

It is true that the path Kakashi has chosen was a terrifying one, but Sakura wants to walk it further, this path seems to have so many surprises on it, as if goodness is not something that they won during the war, that has to be enjoyed now, but that goodness is something they could keep working on, deepening it, and feel it opening towards them harder still.

When she enters the office with her cup of coffee, it becomes clear that Kakashi hadn’t left the office since Sakura had last seen him. And it seems like he hadn’t slept since that time, too.

She pours herself into the work - while Kakashi meets with the people seeking him, talks to them, listens to the reports, Sakura goes through his documents. At the beginning of the day she only systemises them, careful to bring the most vital of them up front so that she could discuss them with the Hokage, writing small pieces of her suggestions on them, and highlights what she feels is important. She knows her teacher is diligent in his overviews, but it never hurts to do so.

Later in the day, after Mirai's team bring her the lunch (Naruto bribed them, and with the spareness of the missions, Sakura even counts those small runnings as D-rank missions), and she forces Kakashi to eat as well, she moves to the big projects - she is the one overlooking the building of the university, and that type of job requires a lot of time and a lot of work done. Meanwhile Kakashi has a small conference with the Kages. Sakura tries to stay purposely ignorant on the international matters, too afraid to have too many balls to juggle, but she can never help herself.

So the job stretches, and goes, and suddenly the familiar routine that settles simply copies one and same day over and over again, with it's hard work stretching well into the night that leaves them both asleep in the most ridiculous hours, awakened suddenly, guilty, but happy over lack of their diligence - peace softened them as well, until at last she finds some strength in herself to go back home. It is the day Naruto comes back.

The relief of his return is instant - he is always so ready to loosen her up, and do they get loose… The weekend flies, but it barely drains her from the tension and the work goes hard that Monday.

After her job at Hokage’s office, she feels so keyed up, she knows she will not bear to be alone in her apartment, so she goes to Ino.

 

 

 

 

Ino’s house is the house built to be lived in the times of peace - flowers are everywhere, it is pretty, Sai painted it in pastels. The garden in front is unguarded, the door is opened wide. How can ninjas live in the house like this?

Sai and Ino adapted to peace easier than she and Naruto. Their apartment is lurking in the dark corner, door - heavy and closed on three locks.

And they two were nothing compared to Sasuke. Sakura remembers his sets, his traps, his tension. He moved constantly, never appearing in the same place twice.

It hurts to think of him, but she is just tired enough to dismiss the pain.

Ino is there, in the kitchen - her kitchen a wild mess, her hair and clothes a wild mess, and her child in the center of it all, laughing with delight at this world he has under his thumb.

Ino has never looked happier to see her, she basically looks at her as if she is some kind physical manifestation of God, there is reverence in the way Ino begs her, as if in prayer:

“Please, please, play with him so that I can…” - and she looks to the sides, clearly unsure of where to start untangling the mess.

Sakura doesn’t have the choice but to say, yes, yes, of course, so Ino gives her Inojin, he burps happily at her, and starts immediately tugging at her hair, pink - his favorite colour. By the time Sakura settles with Inojin in the garden, she sees through the window how Ino lifts some cups, then drops them and starts sweeping, but at the end, she just leaves it all, and Sakura understands that Ino goes to sleep.

Inojin, Sakura always thinks, is a nice child. He is calm, concentrated, but right now he seems a bit over-enthusiased, he talks and talks to her, in this language, that Sakura knows only half the words in, but it seems like her nodding and humming suffices for replies. He is delightful, and very funny, using his whole body to tell her stories. As he becomes gradually more and more aware of the flowers that surround them, he moves towards them and then becomes lost in them. Sakura sees how eager he gets, ripping the flowers apart, and wonders if she should let him have yet another part of Yamanaka household to his mercy. If even Ino was unable to stop him from making the mess of the kitchen, Sakura can’t hope to prevent Inojin from doing what he needs to do with the flowers.

Sakura tries distracting the boy with the suggestion of a market they could walk to, not hoping for it to work, but it does.

So she goes to the shop with Inojin, getting some microwavable dinner, sure that no one in Yamanaka house had the time to cook. Inojin is a slow walker, for all his manic mood, he strays there and here, then gets lost in other places, delighted that he forces Sakura to look for him, so it takes them so long to walk back and forth. Being with a child is harder than it usually seems, but Sakura can feel how the different work eases the tension she’s had from her hard job, making her buzz less with plans and outlines.

Ino is awake when they are back.

She seems more alive, thousand times more composed. They eat the dinner that she and Inojin bought, Ino talks and talks about Inojin, surprising Sakura in the way that maternity suits her, Inojin is delighted to have people talking about him, and slowly the calmness drowns the room. 

Sakura tells her some about the job she is doing with Kakashi, but it becomes quickly apparent that Ino isn’t quite interested, even if she feigns the polite interest, so the talk dies off, they both try to talk about the hospital, but it doesn’t work… Slowly as Inojin keeps drowsing, the current of conversation dies off… 

And Sakura thinks that she needs to go back.

The sudden thought that Naruto will try to come back earlier, the way he tends to these days, makes her linger.

Ino notices that. Because of course she does.

“Afraid to come back to empty home?” - her smile is full of promises to tease her about the honeymoon period.

Sakura doesn’t know how to explain it to her friend… Ino was so blissfully happy with her own honeymoon period, Sakura never tried to talk about it with her, Ino just went assuming that Sakura is just as happy as she is in her relationship, and Sakura for some reasons felt so sore to talk about something like that with Ino, like it's shameful.

She still feels this shame, so she intends to smile and lie, but Ino already noticed everything.

Maybe she could only fool mind reader when she was heavily sleep-deprived with care of the infant.

“What is it, Sakura?”

And Sakura… Thinks about how hungry Naruto will be for her, how much he will desire her, that desire is so hard to bear these days, because she feels so empty of it. The nights are the hardest.

She could never tell Tsunade about it, but she feels free to talk about it with Ino. That is the only thing, isn’t it, that bothers her, why not talk it out?

 

 

 

 

 

“So he doesn’t satisfy you?” - Ino keeps bouncing Inojin on her knees. His whimpers are diminishing as he is dozing off. Sakura might be biased, but Inojin is the cutest thing she’s ever seen despite being the spitting image of Ino.

“No, it’s not that…”

Sakura thinks back to the day before that they spent together, goofing and laughing. The things they did were ridiculous to remember, but they seemed so funny, and despite the dirtiness, all seemed so innocent, like they were just playing together, unaware of nakedness, unaware of adulthood, and responsibilities, lacking experience or the burden of that experience.

Sakura still has the body sore from the sex they had, while doing cartwheels (took them longest time to coordinate and lots of clones to help them navigate the exactness of their steps), and then the mind-blowing sex she’s had with all the clones.

“Was Sasuke that much better?”

Ino says it with such all-knowing face, Sakura knows in the instant that Ino squeezed all the information she needed from Sai. 

Sakura knows Ino knows the freaking penis sizes of all her teammates. 

This is why she hates her best friend so much. How can Sai even handle her? Ino barely lets a day go by without jumping into somebody’s mind.

Sakura is momentarily swapped by the terror - does Ino look smug because she got herself some 10-inch, and won Sakura by that?

But then she tells herself, that there is not a chance that Sai is bigger than Sasuke. Not mentioning Naruto.

“I’m not going to talk about it,” - Sakura replies primly.

“Ah! C’mon, Sakura! My vulva is still opened up to my arse. **Don’t make that face!** And even if I could be bothered, do you think this little one lets me get a freaking minute of sex? Spill all your sexy details, I’ll get drunk on them!”

Suddenly Sakura rememberes the birth Ino has endured. Yeah, the least Sakura can do is give Ino something.

“So today I woke up, I was so angry at Naruto. I don’t even know why.”

Ino nods like she understands fully. Who can ever fault another human for getting angry at Naruto? Who in the village even needed a reason at this point, - it is more of a knee-jerk reaction to his mere existence. 

But Sakura is just too embarrassed to explain Ino that she dreamed about the night and the stars, and slow movement that was shifting her world and woke up with a gaping hole inside her that ached for one person. 

“I was so turned on, so wet, that Naruto got what I wanted immediately as I woke him. He got on top of me and entered. And…”

What did it feel like? For some crazy second, she freaked out there. 

“He started moving, and.. I don’t know, Ino. It felt like it was too much. He was everywhere, I couldn’t even breathe, I was wiggling, and panting, and to him it all seemed like I was.. You know, in ecstasy. But for me - it felt like he was crashing me, he was too big, too everywhere…”

The blonde hair and his blue eyes and the wicked smile, the tan roughened skin under her hands… It all felt so wrong.

“So I started hitting him, I could barely control myself, I was feeling so repulsed, and so, so… Angry. I was truly mad. Mad at him, so mad, I couldn’t even talk, it was some animalistic rage directed at him that took over me, so I scratched him, I bloodied him, I punched him more, and he was laughing - he thought it was some game, because you see I wasn't explaining myself, I kept growling at him, and so he started growling back, and… Oh, Fuck, we both got so worked up by it, I launched forward and I swear - I wanted to rip his neck with my teeth, but he caught me, and he just manhandled me on my stomach… And basically fucked me like we were some animals in heat.”

Ino looks at her with wide-opened eyes.

“Ohhh. Fuck. This is exactly what I needed. I forgot what sex is like.”

Sakura chuckles, and carefully takes Inojin from his mama’s arms.

“We can’t let small children to be hearing such talk.”

“Sakura, he’s been born from something much much dirtier than some talk,” - Ino says as Sakura lowers the babe into his crib. He starts almost immediately whimpering, so she has to lift him up.

“Just give him to his daddy,” - Ino says tiredly. 

Sakura finds Sai in his studio, and asks to walk the babe.

Sai has same dark eyes, same dark hair, his figure is lean, his complexion even paler than Sasuke’s. Even their tempers have similarities.

Sakura wonders if this marriage is the same to Ino, to what Sakura’s relationships with Naruto are - forever shadowed by the unattainable first love.

“Is this what sex between you and Sai is usually like?” - Sakura asks. How can she say - I thought babies could only be conceived when the stars shine bright, when the space between you ceases to exist and you dive deep into the darkness, when the eyes never look away. How can she say that she thought Ino would get it - that there is another type of sex, that isn’t sex at all.

“Nah, Sai is too chill to act like that. But we’re big into role-playing. Oh, don’t tell anyone, but I taught Sai how to do mind jutsu, and one time I entered his body, and he entered mine and we had sex that way. It was… All types of fucked up, in the best way possible.”

Sakura shakes her head, in mocking reproach.

“Yeah, yeah. So what’s the problem? You get angry at him during sex? Did you cum? Do you both orgasm equally?”

“Ino,” - Sakura thinks for a second. She can never talk about the nights she’s had with Sasuke, it was too personal, too treasured, - “Have you ever had the sex… Where it didn’t matter? Where it didn’t matter whether or not you came, or he came, or how many times... You just… Were having it?”

Ino looks at her, comprehendingly. 

Sakura thinks that after Ino has been inside so many minds, there is little wonder why she is so good at reading them.

Sakura sees the pity pooling Ino’s eyes, and turns away, ashamed she is so easy to read.

“Sakura… Do you still love Sasuke?”

She moves her shoulders. She will always love Sasuke.

“I love Naruto, too.”

“Yes. And he is better for you.”

“That’s what everyone keeps saying.”

“You’re not yourself when you’re with him.”

“That, too.”

Ino quiets after that. Can she sense that all same bullet points are annoying Sakura? She bet her friend can.

“He tried to murder you.”

And Sakura thinks that Ino only quieted trying to gentle that particular blow.

“Yes. I know.”

She knows better than to go saying - no he hasn’t. He wasn’t himself the first time, and the second it was only a trick, nothing more. Ino told her it didn’t matter. Sakura tried saying that this was the nature of war, the nature of their world… Ino said that Naruto never tried to hurt her.

_And now Sakura remembers why she hadn’t talked to her best friend about her prob-… concerns._

That was the reason. One among many, but one out of the only two that mattered. The other one was the realisation that she could not ever disturb Sasuke the way she did when she was a child. No matter how she loved him, she could not burden him with her feelings. She understood how wrong her behaviour was, in the time before. If he hadn’t sought her, she wouldn’t impose on him, she decided. 

(Many nights she spent feeling so guilt-ridden because of her behaviour in the past. She couldn’t rewrite it, so she had to accept it. She was a child, learning the feeling of love, taking the first steps in it.)

Had he sought her? It was so hard to understand him. He’s asked her - Is that what you really want? And she said yes, hoping against herself that he would forbid her, that he would beg her. What he told her then… The words she tried to forget, or she would never live happily with her choice.

“Do you imagine Sasuke when you’re having sex with Naruto?” - Ino takes pity on her and drops the talk that annoys Sakura. Ino is the only person whom Sakura told of what went after her second confession to Sasuke. Naruto and Kakashi were there, and didn’t need to be told. And Sakura knew that Tsunade would imprison Uchiha, if she told her what he’s done to her.

Sakura winces.

“Not always.”

But what can she do when it is so easy? The frustration from having sex with Naruto is sometimes getting so overwhelming, and yet not enough. And all she has to do is to close her eyes, and he is right there. She comes so easily from the mere idea that it is Sasuke who is pounding into her. 

She is disgusted by herself then, and somedays she tells herself that is enough of atonement.

“Not always is not never.”

“No, it isn’t.”

And then Sakura thinks about Sai, about his dark eyes, and white skin.

“Do you? Ever?”

Ino tries to hide behind uncomprehending mask, but Sakura sees it in the flicker of her eyes. Panic.

“It’s not like it is for you,” - Ino says bitterly, defeated, and, perhaps, ashamed.

“How different?”

“Sakura… For me, he is more of a God. He is like an idea of perfection… I mean, what is with his body?”

“Ugh! I know!”

He is just so divinely proportioned. Bone structure is perfect, muscles are all elongated… Sakura can write a thesis on the perfection that is Sasuke’s body. She, as a physician, can appreciate it more than anyone.

“And his face… Like how is that fair? He gets all those clear-cut features -“

“He never gets zits!”

“And here we all are mere mortals… With our weird eyebrows-“

“His eyebrows _are_ perfect.”

“And we have to share the world with him? Isn’t that, like… His divine purpose? Give us all something to fantasise, give us that taste that somewhere there exists this perfect man, whose love you have to awaken and save him from his trauma?”

Sakura sobers. This isn’t what she feels.

“Yeah, you see,” - Ino chuckles when she sees Sakura’s face. - "It is different for me. I know, now I know, _I didn’t know it when we were little_ , that it isn’t like what I imagined. For all his perfect hot body, Sasuke is sort of a mess, isn’t he? A human, like all of us, unfortunately. And you can’t save him from something as terrible as what he went through. You can help, but what stupid girl dreams of that? And his love can’t be awakened, because he is this real human with real will that makes choices, and he loves in a way that we all do - in his individual way that, maybe is deeper than the fantasies, but it is also so flawed, compared to the dream.”

Sakura thinks on Ino’s words. She understands. She understands, and feels it even deeper than Ino does, or she would not have admitted it all so easily.

“Besides, there is nothing like a choice left for me, is there? It isn’t me whom he loves.”

And she says the last sentence with such sadness and bitterness, such wistfulness, that Sakura knows she needs to leave. Ino can’t stand to see her now.

Sakura wants to tell Ino that even if he didn’t love her, the choice would still be same. She doesn’t care. She didn’t care before, she doesn’t now. She isn’t sure Sasuke loves her. But that isn’t the dilemma. If she picked him, she would’ve lived her life alone, watching him, dreaming of him. 

And that is the case that is the same, regardless, of what Sasuke feels - can she live her life inside a dream? For her, even when they were together, he was a star that she, standing on the ground, could never reach. She can stretch and stretch herself into thinnest line in order to get to him, and still it wouldn’t matter, because he is so high up in the skies, and he can never be reached. Does she need to exhaust herself so only to get, what? 

Greatest sex in the history of mankind?

Is it so bad to live, surrounded constantly by love and devotion of Naruto, by the happiness he gives her? She can be herself when she is coming home, and feel herself melting into it, like butter upon freshly baked bread. 

Even sex… Everyone is saying that everything rubs off after doing it thousand of times. She and Sasuke had only one kind of sex. She and Naruto can make it exciting, know how to do it, know how to talk about it...

And maybe that light is only illusory. Maybe there is nothing behind it.

What Ino said rings true to her - the love towards Sasuke is not normal love. It is love that took divine form, it could exist bodiless, and Sakura sometimes made a shrine of it. And of him, too. 

How real is it?

Sakura can imagine herself a priest, denying herself necessities of life, all for the sake of idea that was ephemeral, ethereal, and, perhaps, for nothing that is real. What is God compared to food or a good night’s sleep, or a good sex? What is her bigger-than-life love compared to the man who is devoted to her, who is near her? Compared to happiness and joy of every hour, filled with sunshine and flowers?

Especially when she knows all too well of people who sacrificed their life, serving some abstract idea, who are ignoring the life around them. She knows people who are chasing money, ignoring their family, of those people who've had goals and haven’t had the time to notice the spring coming, despite sakuras blooming so violently. She doesn't want to be one of those people.


End file.
